


All You Held Sacred

by bittybatkid, IllusionOfDeath



Series: Critrole Cast - Why? [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Minor Body Horror, Minor Character Death, POV Second Person, all of the tagged characters are very background, percy is angsty what can we say, spoilers campaign 1 through the briarwood arc, taliesin why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 09:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittybatkid/pseuds/bittybatkid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllusionOfDeath/pseuds/IllusionOfDeath
Summary: The home Percy lost, and the one he later gained.





	All You Held Sacred

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so we wrote this after watching episode 69 and listening to Matt's second person pov narration and wanting to experiment. We blame him.

You’re seven years old and you’re at home. There must be nothing better than this; hiding from the cook and stealing cookies off of the cooling rack with the twins. You’re not supposed to come down to the kitchen, but the smell was too good and now here you are, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The three of you move up, quiet as you can. Her back is turned. You grab as many cookies as can fit in your hands and you’re running away, finding a hiding place to eat your prizes. In the distance you can hear your nanny calling, but the three of you giggle, and it’s of no worry. It’s a time filled with joy, and love, and one where you don’t have anything to worry about at all.

Your curiosity finds you staring at the pocket watches all the older men carry in wonder, and, one day, pulling one apart. It’s Anders’ watch; he had been too distracted by the littlest ones to notice you slipping it out of his pocket. Your small hands are deft as they reach in and remove the final piece and as you look at all of the gears laid out before you, you realize you have no idea how to put it back together. They find you later, near tears, frantically trying everything to fix the watch before you have to face Anders to give it back. He only smiles and ruffles your (still brown) hair and the next time he comes back it’s with a book on clockwork

You make things for your family and you love it when their faces light up with joy as you present whatever it is to them. Your father has never really understood why you hide yourself away in a workshop but even he smiles when you bound into the room with something new to show him. 

The day the Briarwoods come, you make yourself a pocket watch and return Professor Anders’ own, now fixed (and maybe working just a little more smoothly than before). You show it off at dinner and Anna Ripley, the woman the Briarwoods brought, stares at it, then you, with interest, eyes glinting. 

The attack comes and you don’t know what to do and everything is a blur until you’re with her, with _Ripley_. 

You don’t remember much of that time, fading in and out of consciousness, coming back each time with more scars than you left with. Until, one evening, Cassandra is at the door, picking the lock. Together, you run. 

You’re running away together, and you can almost remind yourself of simpler times, scheming with your siblings to sneak food from behind the cook’s back, or to hide from your tutors, or to get up to all sorts of things your parents would never approve of.

But now the cook and your tutors are dead (probably), your siblings and your parents are dead (definitely) and— 

Your youngest sister has been shot down in front of you, so painfully close. Her warmth leaves your hand and her weight crashes to the ground behind you and all you can bring yourself to do is _run_.

Hours later, laying on the deck of an unknown boat with the rain sloshing its way around you, you begin to long for home.

Time passes.

You’re dreaming—you must be. The world is black, air thick and heavy, and not at all the way you’re sure it’s supposed to be. A touch of smoke caresses your face, just a brush, and the voice whispers of power beyond the world and blood to be avenged. Its whispers grow harsher and build and grow and it shows you its power and you think, just perhaps, this is only a taste of what it can do. It asks for a deal. You accept.

You wake up. Your head hurts. You hear a voice somewhere in the back of your mind, humming in satisfaction. And then you know what you have to do. You spend the next few days in the workshop you managed to throw together in the heat of the forge., skin blistering, lips cracking, eyes burning, In the end, after the days of frantic working, barely stopping to eat or sleep, you stand, swaying, weak, accomplished. In sits in your hands, like they were meant for nothing else. The smoke comes again, this time emerging like blood from the scars decorating your skin. It curves around the weapon, _the_ _gun_ , and it’s cold, much too cold, and you want to drop it but your hand is no longer yours and hours, seconds, minutes pass and it’s over. 

There’s names on the gun now, and you know, even without that voice telling you, what you have to do. Four of the six chambers are engraved and you don’t dare to ask who the last two chambers are for.

The smoke retreats, pulling back, and you feel, just for a moment, like there’s too much under your skin and you feel like you will split at the seams, you move to gasp, arms curling into your chest, before it stops. 

Your hands shake now. They didn’t use to before. 

After a while, you get used to Him peeling in and out of your skin.

It didn’t use to be like this.

A year passes by in a blur. All you can do is try to find Ripley, to cross the first name off of your list. It’s in a frantic attempt to get close enough to kill her that you get caught and thrown in jail, where you get to sit alone with your thoughts. It is dangerous, to think without distraction.

The cell is dark, and narrow, and cramped. The floor is wet and the walls are coated in moss and it is not at all like the comfort of your childhood home. Your arms strain, pulled above your head. 

Your mind draws you away from the pain and back in time, back to the days spent exploring long darkened hallways and tinkering alone deep in the basement, too far down to know the outdoors. But the prison is rank with the stench of moss and mildew, discomforting and unfamiliar.

There is a steady hum in the back of your mind, present ever since the day He first appeared to you. It is punctuated by the _drip, drip, drip_ of filthy water in the far corner of your cramped cell. Names cycle through your head: Frederick, Johanna, Julius, Vesper, Oliver, Whitney, Ludwig, Cassandra, Lord Briarwood, Lady Briarwood, Anna Ripley, Sir Kerrion Stonefell, Professor Anders.

The nightmares come almost every night—or it is during the day? You hardly have a sense of time anymore. The pocketwatch you carry has long been broken, and the ancient clocks that stood in your childhood home are barely more than a distant memory. You jolt into consciousness with a shaking cry and the guard’s grumbling about noisy prisoners becomes almost like a lifeline.

You wake. There is no use in pretending anymore.

Now the blisters on your skin are from the too-tight manacles, not the heat of the forge. Your lips crack for want of water and your eyes burn with tears you cannot afford to shed.

Your body doesn’t feel like it’s yours. It is cold, distant, and trying to touch things with your shaking hands feels as though the world is smothered in a particularly silky cloth. The echoes of the chamber are getting to be just enough to drive you mad.

Not for the first time, you long for home.

You don’t remember exactly when or how they arrive. It is during one of those rare moments that your skin is only on the edge of feverish and the action of breathing is entirely your own. But the words are kind and they sound sincere, and they don’t push you too hard too fast, and you start to wonder if, just maybe, things could become a little bit okay after all. 

And then you know you were an idiot for thinking it could ever be okay. 

The Briarwoods are coming. You check your gun, eyes tracing the familiar names etched on the barrels, and know what you have to do. 

Vex comes and comforts you, tells you that they will all do whatever it takes to help you get revenge and, for a moment, fleeting as it is, you want to tell her about the whispers in the smoke, the deal you took. The urge passes, and you don’t. 

And you’re running and fighting your way up to the castle and you wish there would be something other than rage burning through your veins. Each name you cross off your list feels less and less like vengeance and more and more like bloodlust. The slide of the smoke in and out of your skin feels almost comfortable now. 

Ripley’s back too and you want to scream, to kill her on the spot. The scars covering your body itch whenever she talks and it’s only the rest of the group deciding that they need her that keeps her alive. The smoke hisses in your head in disdain and for once, you are inclined to agree. 

There is another woman, too. You would recognize her anywhere.

Your sister is alive. You had left her behind, so long ago. Her hair is marked like yours now and it’s that, more than anything, that convinces you she’s real.

But Cassandra is dying. You know her blood is spilling out on the carpet in front of you but all you see is Anders, all you feel is rage. 

You wish you could feel relief that she is safe but all you feel is burning anger, deep in your chest. At least that part of you isn’t numb.

Cassandra fights with you, then against you, walking away with the Briarwoods, and you watch as you lose your family for a second time. Your mind screams that this cannot possibly be real. Not again. 

The Briarwoods, for all their glory, lie just as still as all the other monsters you’ve killed. You try to commit their dead faces to your memory, to replace the coldhearted sneers that have been haunting you for far too long.

The gun is cold again, that burning cold that you cannot escape, and now Cassandra’s name is carved there and this is where you refuse. You deny the smoke and it curls out of your skin, painful once again and they all can see it. They all see your shame. 

They fight Him with you and it’s Pike in her radiant glory that weakens Him and the rest finish him off. The tension doesn’t quite leave you, but now everything seems just that little bit more manageable.

Something makes you hand Scanlan your gun. He throws it in the acid. The spell wears off, and you think you’re going to kill him. 

You don’t.

Time passes, and you almost expect them to call you out on your shame, to ask you to leave what you secretly hope might almost become a second family. They never do.

There’s a moment, when you’re alone in your workshop, when you haven’t seen the others for days, too desperate to drown the memories in your head that you throw yourself in work, that you almost yearn for the voice of the demon, just so you won’t be alone. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the still water before it boils from the hot metal you plunge into it. Bags like bruises lay heavy under your eyes. Your hair is dyed nearly grey from the soot. You go back to work.

The third day dawns, not that you’d know, hidden away from the sun. You haven’t slept for more than an hour at a time because you can’t go for long before the nightmares wake you. 

The twins walk through the door. They take one look at you and then they’re dragging you out of the workshop into the washroom and dumping freezing water over your head. The shock brings you back enough to protest when they sit you down and begin scrubbing at your hair and face. Vex leaves the room and Vax is merciless in his cleaning. She returns with a change of clothes that she places on a table to the side before grabbing another bucket of water. 

You emerge from the bathroom what feels like weeks later, clean and dripping, only somewhat aware of whatever the hell just transpired. They drag you down to the dining hall, where the rest of your party is gathered, all smiling over breakfast. There’s only a moment’s pause when you enter the room, before Pike is clearing a space next to her for you to sit. Someone pushes a plate of food in front of you and they’re all yelling and laughing over one another and you’re eating the first proper meal you’ve had in days. And then somehow, without your knowing, your head is on the table, resting on your arms, and your plate has been cleared away. There’s a small gnomish hand carding through your hair. 

And it's lying there, surrounded by your friends, that the realization hits you. _Oh_. 

And for once, your head feels clear. _I’m home_.


End file.
